Jen Laird-White makes waves on Nyack's waterfront

Feb. 8, 2009

Jen Laird-White stands beside the Hudson River at the Nyack waterfront. Laird-White, a former producer and reporter for CBS, started the Nyack Park Conservancy three years ago. / Stephen Schmitt/The Journal News

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The Journal News

Even in the dead of winter, when Nyack's Memorial Park is nothing but a muted mix of dull grays and browns, it's hard not to be taken in by Jen Laird-White's infectious enthusiasm. Her red hair blows in the wind as she gestures and describes her ambitious plans to remake the riverfront park into a more people-friendly sea of verdant green.

"The river is what makes Nyack spectacular," says Laird-White, a former CBS News producer and reporter who moved to Nyack with her family in 1999. "As I often tell people, Memorial Park is the only riverfront property most of us will ever have."

Three years ago, Laird-White, a transplanted Manhattanite, co-founded the Nyack Park Conservancy. And even though she describes the group as a "sweetly loose not-for-profit," it's already making serious waves in the village with its notion of rebuilding Nyack's largest park from scratch. Instead of the chain-link fences and cracked parking lots, the conservancy - under Laird-White's leadership - envisions gardens, an open lawn, along with a fishing pier, new beach and seating areas right on the water.

Village Mayor John Shields describes Laird-White as a "high-energy mover and shaker" who's "been incredibly good for the village." He praises her work in developing a "world-class park design" - and doing it all without taxpayers' money. Instead, as the president of the conservancy, she has raised more than $100,000 toward a workable plan for a reimagined riverfront. Most of the money has come from annual benefits, along with a $40,000 grant from Scenic Hudson.

A decade ago, this stay-at-home mother was a rising star at CBS News, first as a producer and then as an on-air correspondent working mostly for the Coast to Coast news magazine.

She met her husband, Richard, a freelance cameraman, during a stint working on a syndicated health show in Columbus, Ohio. Divorced at the time, with two small children, he agreed to move back to Manhattan with her.

Their lives changed a couple years later when she got pregnant with Jack, now 10, and decided to leave CBS to raise a family. (They've since had another son, Luke, now 6.) Knowing they couldn't afford Manhattan on one salary, they moved to Nyack. "I knew I didn't want to raise my kids in a community without diversity," she says. "Nyack just felt funky and interesting and I love the river here."

Before long, she was involved with various projects in the village, including building a garden with another parent at Upper Nyack Elementary School, which her sons attend, and being appointed to the village Park Commission by Shields. Over the years, the pair have become such good friends that they often get pedicures and manicures together.

But Laird-White soon grew frustrated with the commission's lack of money and real political clout.

The longer she lived in Nyack, the more she saw how the village, like many waterfront communities along the Hudson, had cut itself off from the river. Starting a private group to raise money - and community awareness - about the importance of a reborn Memorial Park seemed like the logical way to go. Her work has won her many fans in the community, including Orangetown Supervisor Thom Kleiner. "She's brought together a group of very talented people to focus on the greatest resource the village has, which is the river itself," he says.

"I think what makes Jen succeed is a combination of two things: an inherent interest in the affairs of the village and a vision to make the village better," Kleiner says.

Laird-White also sits on the board of directors of Riverspace Arts in Nyack, which wants to tear down an old theater and Urban Renewal-era strip mall in the heart of downtown and build a new performing arts center, along with a mix of commercial and residential buildings and an outdoor plaza.

But the $100 million price tag for the project has unnerved many village residents.

Shields believes Laird-White has great political insight about the future of the village. "She's also been a great sounding board for me," he says. "I hope in the future she'll run for office."

She is, in fact, considering running for the village Board of Trustees - or maybe even as mayor when Shields finishes his term at the end of the year. With her youngest in school now, she's also weighing a return to television.

But for now, with a steady winter wind whipping off the river, transforming this bleak park into an oasis remains her top goal for the coming spring and summer. And even though the Manhattan skyline is just out of view, she hasn't forgotten her roots.

"I'm really a city girl at heart," she says. "But Nyack has been the perfect compromise for me."

Good works

Jen Laird-White's Nyack Park Conservancy (nyackpark.org) has:

- Founded a dog-run park, near the Thruway in South Nyack.

- Opened the Hudson River Kids Summer Discovery Program, which encourages local children to learn about everything that lives in the river. "The whole idea is to give kids a respect for this amazing resource they have right down the street," says Laird-White.